Howard R. Wolf’s Of Two Lives On The Lower Golan is the story of a wondering Jewish American grandfather’s journey to Israel to maintain a close relationship between his daughter – who has made Israel her new home – and her family, especially her first born son, David, whom the grandfather helped raise in America when Miriam’s first marriage failed. Wolf’s novella takes the reader on a miniature epic journey through some of the complexities of life in contemporary Israel – religious orthodoxy, constant apprehension about war with neighboring states, Palestinian rights – without making a political case. The grandfather views life in Israel in both comic and tragic terms, depending on the circumstances, but he has an overriding goal: how to prepare David, age sixteen, for the challenges he may face when he enters the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in two years without alarming the boy or his mother and her new family. Of Two Lives On The Lower Golan is a story at once antic and tender in a land both antique and armed, a balanced tale of love and survival.

Chris Helvey’s novella Behind The 8 Ball tells the story of Earl Turner, a small town policeman on the back side of forty who is still single, still living with his parents, and still reliving his high school glory days. Then, in less than one week, his sad lonely life goes from bad to worse when he abuses a mouthy immigrant, gets drunk at the police chief’s party, and runs afoul of the mayor’s daughter, who’s just not quite right. Behind The 8 Ball is true Southern Grit Lit — honest, darkly humorous, and relentlessly realistic.